Contents

Description

Together with her other teenage companions, Fred Jones, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, Velma Dinkley and Shaggy's pet great Dane, Scooby-Doo, Daphne would engage in solving various mysteries. Daphne was portrayed as the enthusiastic and very beautiful, but clumsy and danger-prone (hence her nickname "Danger-Prone Daphne"; revealed by her cousin, Shannon, being danger-prone is a Blake family trait in Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster) member of the gang, who always follows her intuition. She serves as the damsel in distress and would occasionally get kidnapped, tied up, gagged and left imprisoned. Scooby and Shaggy usually save her, but sometimes Fred and Velma do it. Very occasionally, Daphne's rescued by all of the gang. But as the franchise went on, she became a stronger, more independent character who can take care of herself. Daphne's character is the most developed in the starring cast, going from a klutzy teenager to a successful journalist to an ingenuous fashionista to a black-belt martial artist. When Scooby is nowhere to be found, Daphne also yells, "Scooby-Doo! Where are you?!"

During the series' fourth incarnation, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, some of the episodes focused on Daphne. In the episode "Shiver and Shake, That Demon's a Snake", Daphne buys an idol which is cursed by the snake demon. On the sailboat, the snake demon attacks Daphne and demands that she return an idol. Daphne throws it to Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy. In the episode "The Scary Sky Skeleton", Daphne is reunited with her old friend, Wendy. In the episode "I Left My Neck in San Francisco", Daphne becomes ill and she's unable to help the gang to solve the mystery about The Lady Vampire of the Bay. Due to the vampire's look, Daphne's unseen reflection in the mirror, the bat flying around Daphne's bed and herself returning to bed a little later, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy are convinced that Daphne is a vampire. When the vampiress is revealed to be Lefty Callahan, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy realize they made a mistake with suspecting Daphne and she's feeling good again.

Her usual outfit consists of a purple dress, pink pantyhose, purple shoes and a green scarf. In 1984's The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, she wore the same outfit, but was bare-legged. In Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, she wore a purple and green three-piece suit with matching shoes. In one level she is a damsel in distress being guarded by a dragon. As a child, she wore a pink sweater, red skirt, frilly white panties and pink pantyhose with white go-go boots. In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, she wore some other purple clothes with purple pants and purple high heels, and her hairstyle was also updated..

While not as clever as Velma, Daphne would always solve her problems in a different way. Daphne later became more confident and started playing a more active role as time went on, a result of changing attitudes toward women during the 1970s and 1980s. In What's New, Scooby Doo?, Daphne has also been known to open locks or do other tasks with strange items from her purse.

The youthful Daphne portrayed in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo would commonly call upon her butler, Jenkins, to do various tasks, such as ridding her of unwanted people, beating up a monster, freaking out, etc. The younger Daphne is shown (along with her parents) not believing in ghosts/monsters/supernatural (one of her catch phases in that series was "There is no such thing as ghosts [monsters]!"), a trait she lacks outside the A Pup Named Scooby-Doo series.

In the movie Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Daphne had a very successful investigative TV series called Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake on a fictional channel called "Americana", on which the show had aired for two seasons. The producer of the show was Fred Jones.

Appearances in films

Daphne was portrayed by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the film Scooby Doo and its sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Her husband, Freddie Prinze, Jr., played Fred in these same Scooby-Doo movies. In the movies, Daphne and Fred began a relationship in the first, that followed on through the second. Unlike the previous incarnation of the character, Gellar's version of Daphne is trained in martial arts during Mystery Inc.'s two-year absence in the first film, as she is tired of being a damsel in distress on every case in which she is involved with the gang. In the first movie, she is captured by the masked wrestler Zarkos, but she beats him in a fight at the end.

Note: Frank Welker, Kath Soucie and Jennifer Hale voice the Blakes in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (currently running) series, Vanessa Marshall voiced Danica in the What's New Scooby-Doo series and Grey DeLisle-Griffin voiced Shannon in the Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster (direct-to-DVD) film. Welker also voiced George on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. The late voice actor Don Messick voiced two of Daphine's uncles: Matthew "Matt" Blake on The Scooby Doo Show and John Maxwell on Scooby-Doo, Where are You!.

Notes/Trivia

It can be implied that Daphne is of Irish descent, considering she's a redhead (which is a popular hair color in Ireland), her cousin named Shannon (which is an Irish first name), and Daphne's last name being Blake (which is an Irish last name). Ironically, Daphne is a French name.

An occasional goof would show Daphne being bare-legged instead of wearing her traditional pink pantyhose in some scenes. Her bare-legged look would become the norm in the 1984 incarnation The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries.

Daphne's relatives have a history of running into danger.

Objects

Scooby-Snacks

Flashlight

Magnifying Glass

Cell Phone

Comics

Reception

Members of the fanbase of the original Scooby-Doo speculated that Daphne and Fred Jones had a romantic attraction to each other.[1][2] The makers of the Scooby-Doo film originally planned to refer to the rumor by including a scene where Fred asks to stay with Daphne, using the presence of a toothbrush to imply that he wanted to stay with Daphne for the night. The scene was not included in the final version of the film.[1]